A Bang and A Whimper
by Grand Phoenix
Summary: "They won't forget me. I know they won't." It's a good day to be alive.


_A/N: If memory serves me correctly, the idea for this piece came to fruition after reading cornwallace's "Clockwork Zone" and, more recently, comments from the forums I frequent of wanting to put Sonic out of his misery due to the reception of his games. Nothing against the franchise itself, other than Sega (or any other company helming a game) doing a better job and not half-assing their own project in a rush to get it out before the holidays. Don't be like Ubisoft, guys._

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><p>They take him out back, through the door and down a green tunnel consisting of woods and strewn with the detritus of autumn's late arrival. He can imagine that's where he is right now but this is simply pure conjecture; they threw the sack over his head and tied his wrists together with something which he thinks might be hemp or steel wire. He knows they latched a collar on his neck—he can feel the prongs bite into the soft flesh beneath his quills, and it's on so tightly he can scarcely breathe.<p>

A choke collar, he thinks. The kind you put on domestic dogs to control them, like if they see the local mailman or a stray animal path crossing their territory they'll haul ass to them only to be stopped short—and violently—before they can reach them.

The chain rattles, and the hand holding it yanks it. He stumbles forward, nearly falls over. Another hand snatches him by the crown of his head, away from the needles, and pulls back. It rights his balance and once again he returns to the same, hurried pace they've been going at for a while. He doesn't know how long they've been walking. All he remembers being ambushed out of the blue (and he would laugh if the situation wasn't so dire) in his own room and getting manhandled. Their faces were indistinct blurs of watercolor, but they were big men. Human. They may or may not be working for the Company.

For the first time in his life, Sonic wishes they weren't going so fast. He's never shown it, but now the fear is real, palpable, and he wants for time to stop and rewind and erase this memory from the thread of existence.

But it's inevitable.

This day was in the making.

His heart hammers painfully against his chest.

He wonders if the same is happening to everyone else. Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Shadow…he doesn't want to imagine it but it comes, unbidden, like a leviathan beast in the night. Its tendrils worm through the vents of his mind free of the terror, of the darkness inside us all, and he bites the inside of his cheek to stifle the cry from escaping. He squeezes his eyes tight, so tight, from spilling saline sorrow.

They don't deserve this. None of them do.

They were only doing their jobs.

So why? Why were they doing this? They were the ones giving the orders.

Why does it have to be this way?

Finally, they stop. The person behind him pushes him to his knees and, after a moment, unties the sack and rips it off. Sonic gasps; his chest burns. His eyelids flutter rapidly; they ache with the sun shining hard and fierce upon him. Between blinks he can make out his surroundings, and he's surprised to learn his speculations weren't far off the mark—they are indeed in a forest. Circled front and back and left and right are pines, towering sentinels, full and green and unforgiving. Needles and cones litter the floor. The sky stares down at them, open and clear; there's a strip of wispy white cloud crawling slug-like beneath a barely discernible sun.

It's a good day to be alive. A good day to run at the speed of sound.

Sobs choke him, laughter robs him of breath. He lifts his head and looks upon a one-eyed snake encased in burnished gunmetal swallowing most of his sight, with a tongue of tungsten sitting loosely in its hollow throat. The barrel is cold against his skin.

He can barely see the man's face. The top half is obscured in shadow, like a faceless protagonist in a hentai game. There isn't a trace of emotion to be found.

Sonic's eyes well up. His bottom lip quivers. He sniffs. "Please," he pleads, "give me another chance! I can make things right! Give me one more game! One more!"

"I'm afraid we can't do that, Mr. Hedgehog," says the man. "You had your chance and you failed."

"You guys were rushing to meet the deadline and you know it! If you had just listened to me, the game wouldn't have flopped!"

The man shrugs a shoulder. "I have my orders, you have yours, and we expect each other to carry them out to the letter. The results, however, were not what we were expecting. As a matter of fact, the results haven't been to our liking in eight years. Enough is enough." His thumb cocks back on the hammer, and in this dread, weighted silence it is loud, so loud, like a crack of wood igniting that first spark to start a fire.

Sonic's ears fold downward. His pupils shrink, and his entire world is filled with the maw of finality. "No! Please!"

The man frowned; Sonic, through his tears, couldn't tell what emotion was reflected in it, if any emotion was in it at all. "You had your chance. So did we." His index finger caresses the trigger, whisper-soft and feather-light. "It's for the best, Mr. Hedgehog."

Yes, Sonic thinks in that moment. It's in the best interest for the Company. For the people that want him gone, to put him down like he's some sick dog.

But what of the people that wanted him saved? Who wanted him to succeed? What will they do?

_They won't forget me._

_I know they won't._


End file.
